SEVEN WONDERS OVERTIME

The air in the literature club room after school was not usually suffused with such grim tension.

Even with the windows closed, we could hear the baseball team at practice, shouting enthusiastically, the crappy trombones of the wind ensemble practicing, a few scattered birdsongs, and the telltale rustling of leaves blowing in the wind. But not a soul in the room was making a sound.

I was sitting across the table from Koizumi, our heads down, eyes locked firmly on the tabletop. Nagato was in her usual spot on a folding chair in the corner, her eyes never once leaving the dictionary-sized volume in her hands.

And Asahina…

Slowly, she gracefully reached out her hand, plucked a single card from the pile in front of her, and carefully flipped it over. She parted her pink lips to read the words written on it.

“‘Now, in dire distress’…”

Koizumi and I both leaned farther forward, eyes straining wide.

“…‘It is all the same to me! So then let us meet’…”

Asahina paused momentarily, looking from one of us to the other. She was in her usual maid outfit, but no matter how many times I saw it, it was magnificent, splendid, and affording of new discoveries—ones that I was currently not capable of searching for.

When neither of us reacted, the literature club’s exclusive maid whispered, “‘Even though it costs my life,’” drawing out the syllables theatrically.

Our eyes darted across the table. There were dozens of cards laid out before us, but our target was only one of many. I was muttering “Life, life, life” under my breath, but before I found the target…Asahina reached the end.

“‘In the Bay of Naniwa.’”

Looking relieved, she softly put the card down.

“Whew,” she said, then took a sip a tea from her mug.

Koizumi and I were still frantically searching for the card with the back half of the poem on it. The sound of Nagato turning a page echoed faintly.

“Got it!” Kozumi said, tapping one of the cards in front of him and picking it up. “Is this right?”

His smile didn’t look too confident. We had both been wrong several times.

“I think so?” I said. I rolled my head, trying to ease the stiffness.

The game we were playing was known as karuta, which was based around a collection of one hundred poems known as the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu that had been assembled by the historical figure Fujiwara no Teika. Our goal was to be the first to grab the unique card that corresponded with the poem being read aloud.

“Okay. Next.”

Silence descended once more. It was like the scene from earlier was on replay.

Koizumi and me glaring at the table, Nagato silently reading, Asahina slowly reaching out and picking up a new card.

She inhaled.

“‘Coarse the rush-mat roof…’”

Neither of us moved.

“…‘sheltering’—” A hint of concern crept into her voice. This next kanji was obscure. “Um, is this pronounced an?”

“Io,” Nagato whispered instantly.

“‘Sheltering the harvest-hut’… Uh, koke?”

“Toma,” Nagato said.

“‘Of the autumn rice-field.’”

Koizumi and I maintained our silence.

“Waga…koromo…te?”

“De.”

Asahina restarted the line. “‘And my sleeves are growing wet. With the moisture dripping through.’”

I was already looking for a card that started with wa, but my efforts were in vain.

“Got it.” Koizumi found it on his side again.

Asahina was ready to move to the next card, but I held up a hand to stop her.

“Let’s not,” I said, addressing Koizumi. “Going any further would be foolhardy. And frustrating.”

“Very true,” he said. “I had hoped it would be a bit more fun, but…it’s just too difficult.”

He placed a finger on his chin, smiling ruefully.

I leaned against the back of my chair.

“We lack both the education and sophistication required to play competitive karuta. It’s rude to even try! At the very least, we’ll have to work improving our memorization.”

I’d played a lot of board and card games with Koizumi, but we were clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel, so he’d brought in a battered old deck of Ogura Hyakunin Isshu karuta for a change of pace. Figuring it would help kill the time, we’d given it a shot, but as the preceding events proved, neither of us knew any of the poems by heart like you were supposed to and could only begin looking for the poems once the reader reached the back half—the amateur hour to end all amateur hours. No fun for anyone.

Truth was, I did, for some reason, remember, “In the cheerful light / Of the ever-shining Sun, / In the days of spring; / Why, with ceaseless, restless haste / Falls the cherry’s new-blown bloom?” But Koizumi also knew that one, and watching him snatch the one poem I stood a chance of getting had been even more demoralizing than I expected. Hearing Asahina adorably stumble over the poems warmed my heart, but this was not conducive to smooth gameplay and ultimately wore the reader and the players ragged. Continuing the game was an insult to Fujiwara no Teika.

If we were gonna play any karuta, we should’ve used Yasutaka Tsutsui’s parody of these poems, “Secret Ogura.” Those were more fun, and we’d probably have a blast just messing around. If you’re unaware of that work, I heartily recommend it. It’ll leave you in stitches. I’d seen Babbling Creation Chronicles on the shelf in the corner, so I’m sure Nagato would agree. I doubt she’d so much as crack a smile, though.

Koizumi spent a few more minutes shuffling the cards, but then he sighed, put them down, and began reading his way through the stack.

Something about this made him seem ever so slightly disappointed, and that was when I realized I hadn’t ever lost to him in any game that counted as a game.

He’d been winning at karuta, so if we’d kept going, he might have finally won something.

In other words, the games we played in this room might just be for killing time, but they were all zero-sum games, and this might well have been the first black mark on my record versus Koizumi.

Keeping all this off my face, I took a sip of Asahina’s lovingly prepared tea. The SOS Brigade’s formerly mysterious transfer student was back to his usual handsome self. He readied the deck once more and said, “What do you say? Since we’ve got the deck here, we could try a game called bozu mekuri. Asahina, too. Nagato, you in?”

“No,” she said instantly. She moved her fingers, advancing to the next page.

Asahina handed the reader’s deck over.

“What exactly is that?” she asked. “Mekuru as in…flipping cards? And bozu? Like a boy or…oh, a monk! Like the ones in the deck?”

What a very time-tourist way to divine the meaning of unfamiliar words. She looked quite pleased with herself.

“There’s a lot of local variant rules,” Koizumi said, “but let’s go with a bog-standard version.”

As he filled Asahina in, I turned my gaze to the vacant chief’s chair.

When the end-of-day bell rang, Haruhi Suzumiya had shoved her bag into my hands, squawked, “You go on ahead!” like some screechy, tropical bird, and was out the door like a gust of wind. I had no clue what she was up to and didn’t much care.

I had long since come to the realization that worrying was a waste of time. Concerning myself about things before they happened was exhausting, and I was better off only getting exhausted once some crisis actually took place. There was always the faint possibility that nothing would happen at all—yes, a particularly persuasive bit of self-deception, if I do say so myself.

A single card escaped the reader’s deck that Koizumi was shuffling. It slid across the table to me. Lucky for me, it was a princess card.

SPRING, IT SEEMS, HAS PASSED, / AND THE SUMMER COME AGAIN; / FOR THE SILK-WHITE ROBES, / SO ’TIS SAID, ARE SPREAD TO DRY / ON THE MOUNT OF HEAVEN’S PERFUME.

The blossoms were gone, and the cherry trees blended into new greenery, but summer was still a long way off, and a chill hung in the air—likely because this was halfway up a mountain.

Two months into my second year at high school, in the last leg of May, and the SOS Brigade was as it ever was.

It wasn’t like we were just killing time until Haruhi’s arrival, but we did get to enjoy the entirely luck-based thrills of bozu mekuri for quite a while.

None of us had gotten the titular monk yet. This was only the first stage of the game, where we took turns drawing cards—and we all still had matching piles in front of us. Revealing a monk would force us to discard all of them. Whose luck would last the longest? Before the draw pile could determine our fates…

Bam!

…a loud noise came from the door.

“Huuuh?” Asahina jumped and turned toward it.

That was less of a knock and more someone ramming their shoulder into it.

Tap, tap.

This noise came from the bottom of the door. I had no idea who this could be, but it sounded like someone had body-slammed the door, fallen to the floor, and then began tapping it with their toenails. And this bizarre individual had business with the SOS Brigade. That narrowed down the potential suspects considerably.

If it wasn’t someone from the computer club two doors down begging Nagato for programming tips, then maybe this was a third client following Kimidori’s and Sakanaka’s lead. Or perhaps it was Koizumi’s fellow Agency member, the student council president, back with a new complaint. Tsuruya would never knock—she always burst in like she owned the place, even more than Haruhi herself.

Thud, thud, thud.

The shoe knocker seemed to be getting impatient.

“Oh, coming!” Asahina hastily got up and fluffed out her apron skirt as she reached for the doorknob. The portal opened, revealing the visitor beyond.

“Yo, is Haru here?”

A breezy question. One look explained the odd knock. She was carrying a huge stack of books and files and bundles of paper, leaving none of her hands free. Not sure kicking was the best solution, though…

“Mind if I come in?” she asked. Then she spotted Asahina dressed as a maid and gave her a long look, letting out a noise like she’d accidentally stepped on a jellyfish that got washed up on a beach. “I’d heard the legends, but…to think one of the wonders would be standing right here before me!”

What a cryptic statement.

Asahina flinched at this excessive curiosity, but her own curiosity got the better of her, and she asked, “Um, can I ask what brings you here?”

How very maid-like. I approve.

“Your boss asked me to bring the goods here. Actually, she may not have done that. But I brought ’em anyway! I’m just that nice.”

Baggage and all, she stepped inside, glancing at Nagato, Koizumi, and me in turn.

“Hokay, Kyam! Take this stuff off me already. I want to use my arms again!”

Who and where was this Kyam fellow?

“Kyon is kinda hard to say, so I never liked that nickname.”

I wholeheartedly agreed, but Kyam was equally terrible.

Neither Nagato nor Koizumi moved, so I caved and took the pile of stuff from her. There was a lot, and it was damn heavy.

“Um,” Asahina said, tentatively raising an inquisitive hand. “Do you know her?”

“Yeah, she’s a classmate.” I said. “Class Five; a second-year like Haruhi and me.”

Koizumi locked his gaze onto her. “What is it Haruhi asked you to do?”

I set the stack down on the table, which wasn’t easy, since loose paper and books were all mixed together. The volume on top was called Ghost Stories, Past and Present. Below that was Notable Tales, Old and New, and what looked like a children’s book? Scary School Stories? None of these titles were setting me at ease. It was clear what direction Haruhi intended to follow.

“So at lunch today,” our visitor began explaining, legs set wide and firm, “I bumped into her outside the toilet, and she asked me something.”

What?

“Whether I know about the school’s seven wonders.”

Why would she ask you that?

“I dunno. Probably has to do with the fact that I’m in the mystery research club.”

I guess she did mention that when introducing herself at the start of the term. But how do the mystery club and the seven wonders connect?

“Okay, so her exact wording was…”

She launched into a Haruhi impression.

“‘Does this school have seven wonders? I haven’t heard of any, but maybe some stories about them have been passed down in the mystery club?’”

The impression was just good enough to be weirdly frustrating.

“Was it specifically seven wonders? Not the Seven Lucky Gods or something else she might’ve said wrong…?”

“Well, it certainly wasn’t the seven blunders,” she responded without any hint of a joke. “Honestly, it was confusing to even hear that schools have seven wonders, but I’ve figured it out! Clearly, Haru is looking for spooky rumors. I imagine she thinks mystery and occult are synonyms.”

I don’t think that’s quite it. Haruhi toured all the clubs when school started and was furious the mystery club had never actually stumbled across a murder.

“Oh yeah, I think I heard about that legendary visit from a senior.”

Our classmate in the mystery club shook her head dramatically.

“I haven’t participated yet, but the mystery club does have trips during the summer and winter vacations. But the North High mystery club’s activity records show no instances in which the members were stranded on an island by a storm or suddenly snowed in and trapped in a ski lodge. A complete and utter shame.”

I could see Koizumi spread his hands and shrug. Both those things had happened to us, and neither of them were particularly enjoyable experiences. I glanced at Nagato for confirmation, and to my complete surprise, the human interface had forgone her usual lack of interest in all things, closed her book, and had turned her eyes toward the uninvited mystery clubber like they were a pair of radio telescopes.

“Well, let’s set all that aside,” I said. “I think we know more than enough now about your club’s wonderful activities. What was your response to Haruhi’s question?”

Without batting an eye, she said, “I went directly to our club president and inquired about the existence of any oral tradition that might have preserved the seven folklores of this particular high school. He said no. I went flying back and informed Haru of that, and she said, ‘Hmph,’ then promptly turned her back to me.”

So North High had no homegrown seven wonders? Shouldn’t that have been the end of the story? Why haul in this mountain of folklore?

“To be honest, I’m not really sure myself, either.”

I was getting a headache.

“The club seniors told me to bring this over. So I came straight here, arms loaded high.”

Thank you so, so much, mystery-club vets. How will we ever repay you…?

“If Haru’s on the hunt for seven wonders, then we’re on board to help! And the first step is naturally reference material. We got here a selection from the mystery club’s library, and we printed out a bunch of supplementary info from the Internet.”

Sorry, but I’m afraid all that hard work was for nothing. I hate to say this after you carried it all this way, but could you please take everything back? Especially before Haruhi has a chance to see.

“Why? We brought it for her! Kyam, you’re saying she wouldn’t want it?”

We have our reasons. And they’re none of your business, mystery clubber.

She folded her arms, glaring at me. The gleam in her eyes was withering.

“How long you gonna just call me mystery clubber, huh? You know my name.”

I knew Kunikida, Taniguchi, and everyone who’d been in our class the first year, but less than two months was not enough time to learn all my new classmates’ names.

“Huh?”

She did not buy that at all. How should I explain this?

“You weren’t even a student here last year.”

“True.”

Plus, your name was superlong, like if you said it quickly, you’d bite your tongue. Hard to remember.

“Then just shorten my first name. Everybody does.”

Yeah, I’d rather not.

“That makes no sense.”

She shook her head, clearly disgruntled.

“That aside,” I said, seizing my opportunity, “how long are you gonna hang out here? If you’re all done, could you head on back already? I thank you on Haruhi’s behalf for bringing over the data on the seven wonders. Very helpful. Bye now.”

I tried waving her to the door, but our classmate/mystery-club member showed no more signs of moving than a flamingo with its legs ensnared by vines. Don’t tell me she’s hell-bent on staying here until I said her name.

“Actually, I’ve got one other bit of business,” she said.

She turned her entire body to face the corner of the room, where Nagato sat.

“I’ve been tasked with delivering a formal request to the president of the literature club.”

Nagato looked directly at the mystery-club assassin. This was surprising enough. Nagato almost never stopped reading, no matter who stopped by.

“We read the magazine your club released.”

Starting things off with a killer pass.

“…………”

Nagato slowly closed the book on her lap. I caught a glimpse of the title. Dictionary of Symbols and Imagery. Would you look at that? I said the massive thing was thick as a dictionary, but turns out it literally was one.

Wait, sorry, that wasn’t the truly shocking thing.

Nothing was more astounding than the fact that Nagato had not only stopped reading but actually closed her book to listen to someone else. Asahina was too busy gaping at the mystery-club member to notice, but Koizumi was watching Nagato like an astronomer observing RR Lyrae variables from the Andromeda Galaxy with the naked eye.

But the mystery-club girl was oblivious to the cosmic significance of this miracle.

“Honestly, I can’t say I was capable of objectively evaluating the content.”

A fair opinion. Almost certainly correct.

“But putting aside its qualities as a piece of work, our club’s leaders agree that putting out a magazine at all is noteworthy.”

And that led to this request?

“The mystery club is planning to release a magazine of our own. We’d like you to contribute, Nagato. That’s a pretty please with sugar on top.”

She bowed low.

“I’m crazy for your dreamlike, poetic writing style, Nagato! And the others in the club agreed. Calling yourself the literature club president is no empty title.”

Then maybe don’t hit her up while here on other business. Make it a formal request. We put that magazine out a while ago. What has your president been up to in the meantime?

“He said he made the request at the club-president meetings.”

Ah.

“And that your club ignored it.”

That girl would.

“Well?” the mystery-club girl said. “We don’t have a deadline set or anything. Just a vague goal to have it out in time for the culture festival.”

That was in the fall, so quite a distant goal.

“We don’t care what you write. Just give us one thing, one work of art. What do you say?”

Nagato rotated her head horizontally until her eyes met mine.

“…………”

After three full seconds of silence, she lowered her head two centimeters, and after a further three seconds, she raised it back up.

The mystery-research girl whispered anxiously in my ear.

“Yo, Kyam, can I interpret that series of movements as a yes?”

Yeah, I’ll vouch for that interpretation.

“Thank you so much, Nagato!”

She bounded to her feet and moved so fast that she practically teleported over to Nagato, grabbing her hand and shaking it vigorously.

First, the computer club, now the mystery research club—Nagato might well be stealthily earning herself quite a rep here. She largely functioned as the literature club’s own guardian spirit, almost like she was the resident zashiki-warashi. It wouldn’t hurt her to broaden her social horizons. I was starting to think recruiting Nagato was the real reason this girl had been dispatched here, and delivering Haruhi’s seven-wonders data had just been an excuse. If that was true, the mystery-club leadership were some crafty customers.

Having secured Nagato’s participation, the mystery-club girl had made herself at home and was now sauntering around the room, inspecting the bookshelves. On a journey through the sea of spines.

“You’ve got great taste! Lots of fantastic mysteries here. This one’s amazing! Ooh! Hmm? Mm!”

She’d frozen in her tracks, then yanked a volume from the shelf at lightning speed, flipping through the pages.

“I-is this is the Viking Press hardcover of Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow?! The ’73 first edition?!”

She held the book aloft to the heavens.

“Nagato, would it be possible for me to borrow this?”

“………”

I had no clue how valuable that battered old tome was, but Nagato placidly waited approximately six seconds before nodding once.

“Uh, Kyam, am I right to…?”

“That was a yes.”

“Thank you so much, Nagato!”

She carefully placed the book on a nearby table, then bounded across the room once again, giving Nagato another vigorous handshake. If Nagato had not been sitting down, a hug might’ve entered the mix.

“I’ll return it the moment I’ve finished passionately perusing the contents! I can just hand it off to Kyam, right?”

No. Bring it back yourself. To Nagato.

“Then I’ll do that!” She nodded deeply and cradled the borrowed book under one arm. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. Many thanks to all!”

She bowed with feline grace and danced her way out the door.

Leaving an afterimage of blond hair streaming through space.

“Whew.”

That had been a long conversation to stand through.

Asahina had also been on her feet that whole time. She blinked a few times and then said, “Oh, I should have offered tea!”

Nobody had thought she would stay that long or be quite such a force of nature. There’d been no opportunity to inject hospitality.

And we’d blown our chance to reject the pile of folklore. We’d have to hide it before Haruhi showed up.

I checked around to see if there were any nooks or crannies where the contraband could be hidden out of sight and found Koizumi looking oddly dejected. Was the exchange student who had been placed in my class last month really that worrying?

“That’s a concern, certainly, but…”

Then is it because she failed to mention the cat story you wrote for the magazine?

“Well…that doesn’t really matter.”

He peered down at the gift she’d brought us.

“The school’s seven wonders are a far more pressing concern.”

Aha.

Koizumi didn’t seem to care for my reaction. He leaned forward in his chair.

“Suzumiya is investigating whether this school has any such legends. And like our visitor said, it would appear there is no such thing. Which makes matters simple. You know how Haruhi’s mind works.”

…If something doesn’t exist, we just have to make it ourselves—her life motto.

“That is the next logical step, yes. And where that leads is clear. Sooner or later, Suzumiya will create a set of seven wonders for our school. Using the full force of her boundless imagination, she’ll come up with occult phenomena that are downright disruptive.”

Koizumi raised his hands in surrender.

“And it’s entirely possible that one or all of these wonders will wind up becoming real.”

I swallowed the last of my tea.

That’s right. Haruhi had the power to make her wishes come true.

The SOS Brigade’s chief had yet to appear. We had to consider it a stroke of luck she had not been present for the eccentric mystery-club girl’s visit.

“That we should. This at least buys us some time,” Koizumi nodded.

“Time for what?” I asked.

“Naturally, to think up this school’s seven wonders. Before Suzumiya herself dreams up bizarre phenomena and plunges North High into the crucible of chaos, we must prepare a viable set of preventative measures.”

We can’t just do nothing, that’s for sure.

“If it’s something like cherry blossoms blooming in the fall, we can laugh it off as something caused by global climate instability. But the pigeons in the shrine turning out to be supposedly extinct passenger pigeons— Well, if biologists had found out, it would have been quite an event. A similar principle.”

So just like when we filmed the movie.

The four of us had been repeatedly forced to hold emergency meetings. All SOS Brigade members, Haruhi herself excluded. But this was the first time we’d done that in the clubroom.

While Asahina was getting everyone a fresh cup of tea, I had Nagato leave her usual corner and join us at the table. She pulled a book of scary stories for children out of the mystery club’s pile and quietly started reading.

Why did the mystery club’s library have so many horror stories and old folktales in it? Did they have a spy from the horror camp in their midst?

“Horror and mystery are two sides of the same coin,” Koizumi said, examining the stack of documents towering before him. “If the ghost turns out to actually be a ghost, that would be considered horror, but if it’s just a dried flower or a weeping willow mistaken for an apparition, then it becomes commonplace. Taking horror-inspired phenomena, molding them with common sense, and providing logical explanations is a classic structure of mystery novels. John Dickson Carr was particularly famous for clever uses of this approach.”

You should’ve brought that up while the girl was still here. She might have been impressed.

“I foresaw the distinct possibility that we might end up discussing mysteries for hours, so I resisted the temptation.”

If he kept talking like this, I was definitely bound for headache-ville.

“The tea’s ready,” Asahina announced, bringing the tray of tea around. She served one to each of us and then took her seat.

Koizumi bowed to the club maid, then launched into the briefing. “I explained as much during the film shoot last year, but the trick is to prepare sound reasoning that will prevent the state of the world from altering.”

I could use a refresher. What does that mean in this case?

“I found a good example in the data your classmate brought us, so let us examine it together.”

Koizumi pulled a book from the stack. A hardcover volume called Notable Tales, Old and New.

“This is a collection of lore compiled in the Kamakura era. It contains a vast quantity of stories and incidents that the author, Tachibana Narisue, either heard about or personally witnessed. It has become a valuable reference for the superstitions and attitudes of the age.”

Classical Japanese was definitely not my forte…

“One story in here is so famous that it also appears in Anthology of Tales from the Past. It’s a mystery tale that reads as horror. According to this, a certain grisly murder was perpetrated by a demon.”

Muttering that he was sure it was in here somewhere, Koizumi seemed to be struggling with the index. Eventually, he located it.

“Here it is! August, third year of Ninna, pine grove east of Butoku Palace, a man transformed.”

When was the Ninna era again? I could only remember the temple named for it.

“According to the author, the corresponding date on the Gregorian calendar would be sometime in early September 887 AD. Three court ladies were out for a nighttime stroll when they spied an attractive man beneath a pine tree. He took the hand of one of the ladies and drew her into the shadows.”

I could only remember the temple named for it and that it was during the early Heian era.

“The two of them spoke for a while but eventually fell silent. The lady’s companions grew suspicious and peered into the darkness, whereupon they found only the woman’s severed limbs.”

That was grisly.

“The two ladies hastened to the nearest guard post, and at their behest, the night watch raced to the scene, but all they found was the victim’s limbs—no signs of her head or torso. Or the man in question.”

Absconding with part of the body—the main part—was certainly the stuff of horror. And the man…?

“Yes, they decided only a demon could be responsible, and that the man in question had to be a demon in disguise—that’s what the people of that era concluded.”

There a follow-up?

“The account of the incident ends there, and the rest of the book covers other topics—it seems that same month had an unusual number of earthquakes and attacks by swarms of winged ants and heron flocks, alongside a number of other exceptional incidents.”

Koizumi seemed indifferent, but for the Kyoto natives at the time, it must have been a real nightmare. They didn’t have bug spray or handy nets to ward off unwanted birds. Earthquakes were a problem to this day. But it was hard to connect those to the murder.

“There are two basic conclusions,” Koizumi said. “First is that the killer really was a demon. That’s not particularly strange. In the Heian era, people were certain there were several species that fed upon humans, and all manner of unnatural creatures in the world at large.”

My only window into the Heian era came from video games.

“The second is that the killer wasn’t a demon, in which case he must have been human. Following this line of thought, there are several possibilities. One is that there was a murderer who cut off a woman’s arms and legs and carried her head and torso away.”

Even back then, it must have been quite challenging to kill someone, disfigure the corpse, then escape with the head and torso in tow without leaving any witnesses.

“The other possibility is that the two surviving ladies were responsible. They could have had their reasons to conspire and slaughter the victim. The disappearance of the head and torso could have been because of lingering evidence that the crime was their doing. Say, for example, the killing cuts were many and shallow, delivered by a physically weaker woman’s hand. This would have forced them to completely remove the limbs, dispose of the remainder elsewhere, and file a false report of the incident.”

Koizumi let out a short chuckle.

“Their report is difficult to believe, and the scene left behind even more bizarre. It’s no wonder the guards concluded a demon did it. It was clearly not the work of mortal men. As you yourself suggested.”

I feel tricked.

“But if you reach the latter conclusion, all becomes clear.”

Koizumi picked up the mug with his name on it.

“The key to this explanation is that, however grisly the murder, we know demons don’t exist. This is not a fantasy world, but the world we all know and live in.”

He took a sip of steaming-hot tea.

“There’s one other demon-based story in this volume,” he said, clearly on a roll now. Which was quickly interrupted when he struggled to find the story he was looking for. “Ah, here it is. July, first year of Joan. Izuno-kuni Okushima, a demon ship, arrives. The contents are mostly what you’d imagine based on the title.”

How long are we doing this? I hate dealing with old-school Japanese. Can we move on already? This is clearly just a way for Koizumi to vent frustration over not being able to chat about mysteries because of the issue surrounding the seven wonders.

“Unlike the previous murders, where the mystery man’s demonic nature was pure supposition, in this instance, they believed from the start that demons had arrived.”

Asahina perked up her ears, interested. No matter the angle, she looked every part like the Japanese representative attending the World Maid Symposium.

It was unclear if Nagato was listening or not. She was as silent as ever, but I realized she’d moved on to the second volume of children’s horror stories. Perhaps she liked them.

Koizumi explained he would be paraphrasing and condensing the original text.

“In August of 1171, a drifting ship washed ashore an island near Izuno. The islanders assumed it was a wreck, but eight demons came ashore. When the islanders offered them sake, they drank and ate like horses. ‘They spake not a word,’ or so the text says. The demons are described as being eight or nine shaku tall, with hair dark as night, red skin covered in tattoos, eyes round like a monkey’s, wearing naught but a simple cloth draped around the waist. Each carried a pole gauged to be some six or seven shaku long.”

Didn’t really sound like the islanders were particularly scared of these demons.

“One of them wanted a bow the islanders had, and when this request was refused, the demons roared and attacked. Five islanders were killed and four critically injured. The demons shot fire from their armpits, but when the islanders fetched blessed arrows and fought back, the interlopers were pushed back into the ocean before they took off on their ship. As they did, one of the demons lost his sash, and it was stored in the treasure chambers of Rengeo-in, more commonly known as Sanjusangen-do.”

From what I’m hearing, these ain’t your classic Japanese oni. Only the waist wrap really sounded familiar.

“Precisely. The incident itself does appear to have happened, and we know from Kujo Kanezane’s diary that a report on it was indeed delivered to the Izuno court. Kanezane suggested the drifters were ‘some manner of barbarian’—in other words, visitors from another country.”

That seemed about right. It wasn’t like they literally had horns and fangs, and if they were legit demons, the islanders would have been too scared to approach them. Instead, they all drank together.

“Yes. Assuming this was a ship blown off course by a typhoon or the like is a logical conclusion. They ‘quaffed and feasted, horselike’ because they were starving from their long journey. The conflict and murder that followed likely occurred because they didn’t know a word of Japanese. A simple breakdown of communication between the natives of two nations.”

What’s up with the armpit fire?

“Based on their physical descriptions, there are theories the visitors were Polynesian, so perhaps that is an attempt to describe the torches used in traditional fire dances.” Koizumi chuckled. “Unlike the grisly murder mystery, there would be nothing particularly uncanny about this incident—apart from the word demon coming up. There were plenty of witnesses, and everything that took place was entirely within the limitations of mortals. Sailors from abroad responded to conflict with violence, realized they had outstayed their welcome, and sailed away. Nothing more, nothing less.”

And even when there were reports of demons appearing, people back then weren’t so gullible that they just believed the first thing they heard.

“If anything, it seems like little separates us besides the many intervening years.”

Koizumi was flipping through the book again.

“Another fascinating instance reveals itself in chapter twenty-seven, which deals with apparitions. Part of the preamble reads, ‘That which is ever changing has been unparalleled since inception. Ancient are the tales of apparitions bewitching the hearts of men, however improbable they may be.’ In this case, the term apparitions is used to mean monsters—like the demons we’ve been discussing. The author is specifically calling out the unlikelihood that any such supernatural creatures were out there shape-shifting and playing tricks on humans. Even eight hundred years ago, people often thought these stories were quite suspect. One would think looking back from the future should provide us with a far more distinct advantage.”

I wouldn’t call it bewitching per se, but you did transform into a ball of light once, so I’m finding this all sort of unconvincing.

Koizumi snapped the hardcover book shut and placed it on the table. Assuming that meant the topic had drawn to a close, I attempted to sum up the point he’d been trying to make with this incredibly long-winded primer on historical anecdotes.

“So basically, we’ll be using that same logic? No matter what Haruhi says the seven wonders are, we have to insist they were tricks of the eyes, rumors that were distorted in retellings, or false reports to begin with? Turn these wonders into something unremarkable?”

“I believe that’s the simplest solution.”

So even if an Elasmosaurus appeared in the school pool at night, and multiple eyeball witnesses spotted it raising its long neck and annoying the locals with its roars, we have to insist they’re all just seeing things?

“If it comes down to it,” Koizumi said as he nodded firmly. “I intend to stick to my guns.”

Even if they had photos and videos and were spreading them online?

“That sort of thing can be easily doctored, so we’ll simply insist it’s impressive CGI.”

You’re getting pretty bold, yourself. Has Haruhi’s way of thinking infected your mind?

I shook my head like a Sunshine Buddy.

“I don’t think Haruhi’ll buy that.”

“Oh?”

It might set her off instead, leading to the birth of a super wonder so real and on such a scale that no weasel words would be persuasive, so insanely supernatural that anyone who saw it would know they were seeing it and not “seeing things.”

“That would be rather bad.”

I think it’s better to not let her create anything in the first place. Trying to minimize the mysterious phenomena after they pop into existence is too risky.

Koizumi sounded impressed. “If that’s doable, I would be all for it. But how?”

Flip the concept. Instead of waiting for her to dream the wonders up, we concoct our own wonders. North High already has seven wonders, and here’s what they are! That argument is the best way to silence her.

“What if she doesn’t like them?”

Once we get that far, the rest is a gamble, no doubt. But I feel like if we handcraft seven wonders for her, she wouldn’t dismiss them out of hand.

“Then let us gamble on that chance.”

Koizumi freed a pile of printouts from the weight of Notable Tales, Old and New and handed it to me.

“I imagine the references your class’s exchange student/mystery-research-club member brought will prove invaluable.”

At a glance, there were dozens of pages printed out (in color, even) from any relevant websites—and a lot of classic horror school stories were listed. These would be handy references.

“Still…”

Should we really be holding Haruhi Countermeasure Planning Committees here? She could come barreling through the door at any moment.

Koizumi glanced quickly down at his phone.

“Never fear. I’m tracking Suzumiya’s present location and activities. We have time enough before she heads this way.”

Did you put a GPS tracker on her?

“Well—the members of the Agency are Suzumiya experts, so we have our ways. Naturally, nothing quite that crude.”

Not something to be bragging about, either.

“The student council members are not the only cooperators we have on campus. Should the need arise, our allies can slow her down—peacefully, of course.”

I get it, okay? You and those countless red spheres are like Haruhi’s tranquilizers. I’m long past doubting you on that front.

I tossed the bundle of loose printouts onto the table.

“Then let’s formally commence the North High Seven Wonders Planning Committee meeting.”

“Okay!” Asahina said, applauding alone. Our brigade’s mascot girl/club maid/my personal source of comfort could be counted on to add a touch of delight to any given moment.

“By the way, umm,” Asahina said, looking from one of us to the other, “by wonders, do we mean scary stories?”

Had we used it in any other sense?

“I thought seven wonders referred to historical buildings or ruins.”

Then what did you make of all these old stories Koizumi was talking about?

“That was in ancient Kyoto, right? I remember Kyoto’s supposed to be a historical landmark, with many old buildings that should still be standing today.”

Was that how future people remembered it?

Then what about the second story?

“I thought that was about the island from Momotaro.”

Putting Kyoto and Momotaro aside for the moment, sure, seven wonders on its own could refer to the wonders of the ancient world. The Colossus of Rhodes or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, etc. But unless I’d misheard the mystery-club girl’s demonstration of her mimicry skills, Haruhi was definitely talking about the seven wonders of our school. I mean, this was Haruhi we were talking about, so she was liable to add of the world at some point along the way.

“If that happens, then our summer trip will be international,” Koizumi said, with a hollow look in his eyes. Like he was trying to ballpark how much that might cost.

The only ancient world wonder still standing was the pyramids, but Haruhi was perfectly capable of deciding to go dig up the ruins of the others and even stand a chance of being successful. I’d never heard her plans for the future, but it would’ve been fitting in a way if she wanted to be an archaeologist one day.

“I would not recommend it, personally.”

Why not?

“Just imagine it. Haruhi picks up a random rock outside Giza, and it has hieroglyphs explaining the real reason for the creation of the pyramids.”

A historical find. Mankind would rejoice.

“But what if the contents were not to mankind’s benefit?”

Like?

“I daren’t speculate. But we must prepare for the possibility and be ready to respond. For now, let’s focus on the school’s wonders.”

Koizumi got right down to business.

“What’s the first school horror that comes to mind?”

Without really thinking about it, I said, “Statues of Ninomiya Kinjiro.”

I started flipping through the mystery club’s printouts.

“Based on the data they found, stories about that rank first or second in most schools. Sounds like they’re super standard.”

Kinjiro was famous for being so hungry for knowledge that he read books even as he walked to work, but modern hand-wringing had led to newer statues depicting him sitting down. That was irrelevant, but it did bring a different problem to mind.

“Does this school even have a Kinjiro statue?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Well, if we don’t, then does it have to be Kinjiro?”

“No, but like you said, Suzumiya might consider a Ninomiya Kinjiro statue to be an essential entry on any list of seven school wonders.”

In other words?

“If Suzumiya firmly believes one of the seven wonders must involve a Ninomiya statue, then a statue of him will appear somewhere in North High. A weather-beaten, storied statue that looks as if it has been there since the school was built.”

Wish she could manifest something more useful. Like AC for the clubroom.

“Hypothetically speaking, what sort of uncanny phenomenon do we think she’d generate from this statue?”

I considered this for a moment.

“Kinjiro flies around in a Superman pose. Because staying in the same position all the time is exhausting, and he needs the exercise.”

“That is certainly the sort of leap in logic Suzumiya often makes. Well said.”

Somehow, I don’t really feel like I was praised very much.

“Let’s consider a flying Kinjiro statue our starting point, then. The key here is to figure out how we can minimize the impact of this legend. More common stories involve statues that have glowing eyes, that change which way they’re facing, that wave at passersby—maybe the book in his hands changes which page it’s open to or the amount of firewood on his back changes.”

Ninomiya Takanori (still the same guy) stories are all super mundane, huh?

“And all entirely dismissible as a trick of the eyes.”

Koizumi pulled out a fresh sheet of A4 paper and began taking notes—awfully fast for handwriting. Who was the SOS Brigade’s secretary again? I remembered him being the deputy chief, but…

I shook my head.

“Haruhi’s not gonna accept any legend that cliché. We’ve gotta add a twist at least. Asahina, what would you have Ninomiya Kinjiro do?”

The maid from the future blinked at me. “It’s a statue of that person, right? And it moves? How?”

The fact that a bronze statue is moving is what makes it a “wonder.”

“Oh, I see! But does it have to be bronze? If we put an actuator inside a statue made of a kinetic metal, it would be able to move around just fine.”

At that point, it would just be a robot. While I pondered how to explain this to her, Koizumi snapped his fingers.

“That would be one solution!”

If the Kinjiro statue were designed to move, there was nothing wondrous about it.

“No, not that, the material the statue is made from. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. The typical makeup is…”

“It’s 85 percent copper, 5 percent tin, 5 percent zinc, and 5 percent lead,” Nagato said, without looking up from the children’s book. Guess she’d been listening, after all.

“What if those proportions changed once a year? For example, if it became 85 percent copper, 4.9 percent tin, 4.9 percent zinc, and 5.2 percent lead. The appearance wouldn’t change at all, merely the composition. That would be rather wondrous, wouldn’t it?”

Kinda weak. I considered it for a moment.

“What about 84 percent copper, 4.5 percent tin, 4.5 percent zinc, 4.5 percent lead, and 2.5 percent orichalcum?”

“Interesting. But that’s an awfully high percentage for a metal that doesn’t exist. Let’s say 85 copper, 5 tin, 5 zinc, 4 lead, and 1 orichalcum.”

Were we paying by the gram here or something?

“Well, we’ve settled on something rather restrained,” Koizumi said. “Even if this does come true, it will have no lasting harm.”

Having 1 percent of an unknown metal like orichalcum could turn out to be a huge deal, but let’s just pray it doesn’t.

“So that’s one wonder down.”

Koizumi’s notes now read:

Legend of Ninomiya Kinjiro’s Statue:

In the dead of the night on the full moon, the composition of the statue changes from 85 percent copper (ugh, skipping ahead) to (same) 1 percent orichalcum. Returns to normal when the sun rises.

Adding the bit about the dead of the night was an obvious attempt at pretending this was properly spooky, but I had no objections to that.

Right, next.

“Almost as popular a theme are scary stories about music rooms.”

The piano playing at night when no one was around—the sort of story anyone could dream up.

“Applying that mystery-novel-solution approach, it’s likely someone left their phone or a recorder in the music room, and an alarm or ringtone went off at a scheduled time.”

A bit too easy.

“If music’s coming from the piano in an empty room,” Asahina said, “then could it be a player piano?”

Possible, but nothing that fancy would be in the music room at a public school.

Asahina crooked her head like a songbird and asked, “What does it play?”

Did it matter? No, maybe it did. This was supposed to be a scary story, so the music had to be fitting. Schubert’s Erlkönig or Mozart’s Requiem?

“Oh,” Koizumi said, snapping his fingers again. “I know just the number.”

“Yeah? What?”

“4'33".”

Not sure if that was long or short.

“It’s not the length of the track, but the title of a piece of music.”

What a functional title. I figured it would be online somewhere, so why not pull it up? I moved to the laptop—spoils from a face-off with the computer club—intending to boot it up.

“Not necessary. I mean—you can’t actually hear it,” Koizumi said, smiling. “The performer sits in front of the keyboard for four minutes and thirty-three seconds doing absolutely nothing. Less music than performance art, perhaps.”

Not functional so much as avant-garde.

“Very. Much has been written debating the question of whether it even qualifies as music, but there could be no composition better suited to a music-room horror story.”

A soundless composition would be heard by no one even if there were a ghost to play it. What an astonishingly harmless specter. I felt almost sorry for it.

“Asahina,” I said, on a whim, “in the future, have you uncovered any scientific evidence of ghosts?”

She looked momentarily surprised, but then she parted her full lips as she paused for a few seconds before saying, “That’s classified. Heh-heh.”

Why do you seem so pleased?

“When I can’t tell you something important, it’s really upsetting. But for something like this, where it’s unlikely to make a difference if it’s a yes or a no, my not being able to say anything is inconsequential, so I can say ‘That’s classified’ with my head held high.”

The fact that she’d deemed the existence of ghosts inconsequential seemed like a solid hint toward what the answer was, but when our maid literally held her head high, it certainly emphasized her figure. I diligently averted my eyes. They found Koizumi shrugging.

He was awfully hell-bent on transforming horror into everyday mystery tropes. Maybe the whole Haruhi countermeasures thing was just a good excuse, and he was actually just a total wimp when it came to ghosts and ghoulies. That would certainly explain why he was so motivated about making Haruhi’s seven wonders something unobtrusive.

He ran his pencil across the page again.

Mystery of the Music Room:

In the dead of the night on the new moon, the piano in the empty music room plays John Cage’s 4'33". The music room is locked, with no way in or out.

“Do we need that last clause?”

“I was hoping it would add to the mood,” Koizumi said. “Next…how about this? Your classic staircase horror, in which the number of stairs increases or decreases.”

I’d certainly heard the like before. Some even incorporated puns, where it would only happen if someone was staring at you. Staring at you on the stairs. A rhyme just about anyone could come up with.

“Yeah,” I said, considering it. What would Haruhi do with stairs?

Koizumi must have hit the same conclusion, because he jumped ahead of me and said, “Perhaps every staircase in the school becomes an escalator?”

Seriously, putting AC in every class would be way more useful. The lowest-bidding construction contractor had left us with flimsy walls that provided no protection from the heat or cold, and it was nearly always the exact same temperature inside as it was outside. We should fix that problem before installing any damn escalators.

“We’re not proposing improvements to school amenities. Our focus is simply uncanny stories.”

I was all in favor of turning this into a committee to steer Haruhi’s weirdo powers toward manifesting stuff that actually benefited us. Nobody would be the least bit upset if AC and escalators appeared overnight. I imagined our schoolmates would be quite pleased.

Koizumi shook his head at me.

“Now that I think about it, if the stairs were replaced with escalators, that would just be dismissed as hasty construction work. The same goes for AC. Going to such extremes actually takes us further from wonder. Let’s brainstorm something a bit more mundane.”

The result of that storm?

The Staircase’s Secret:

In the dead of the night on a crescent moon, the staircase leading to the roof of the southern building gains an extra step for one full hour. Whoever treads upon that stair will be briefly plagued by an ingrown toenail on their right big toe. Furthermore and hitherto, we can’t dismiss the strange and uncanny possibility that all classrooms will suddenly have air-conditioning.

That bit at the end was entirely my doing.

“The first and last sections are entirely unrelated. Also, I think your misuse of archaic conjunctions will draw unnecessary attention.”

Who cares?! Scary stories not making sense just makes them seem more real.

“I don’t know if we want Suzumiya to think any of this is real.”

Despite his grumbles, Koizumi was already leafing through more printouts.

“Mirror-based stories are relatively popular as well. Check one at a specific time and see your future self or be sucked in and get lost forever.”

What mirror, though? I ran through all the mirrors I could think of in the school.

“There’s a pretty big one in the bridge connecting the central building and the gym. Let’s use that.”

If it was raining, the baseball team would use it to check their forms. I’d seen people practice pitching in front of it. I dunno what other use the thing had; it certainly was sort of a mystery mirror.

What would happen to that in the dead of the night? Koizumi started us off.

“First thing that comes to mind is that your reflection’s actions don’t match your own.”

Asahina?

“Um, what if your reflection steps out of the mirror?”

A doppelgänger, eh? Personally, I was sick of running across myself already, but…

Might as well ask Nagato. Any ideas?

Nagato’s eyes had been locked on the children’s book, but they slowly drifted upward.

“The person reflected in the mirror has all amino acids in their body changed from L to D.”

A very scientific proposal. When I said nothing, she decided further explanation was required and said, “Enantiomers,” under her breath.

I had no idea how this qualified as an uncanny phenomenon, so I simply maintained my silence, pretending to take a sip from my long-since-empty mug. Asahina was definitely doing the same thing. Comrade!

“Oh, I see,” Koizumi said with a single clap. Traitor! “Same principle as the statue. Your appearance doesn’t change at all, but the composition of your very flesh is mirrored! Fascinating concept. And entirely harmless. A highly sensible wonder.”

I didn’t think sense had any business being mentioned in the same breath as wonder, but was it really harmless? Cool, let’s go with that, then.

As Nagato went back to her reading, I could swear she whispered, “……jam,” but there were no baked goods around, and our mugs certainly didn’t have Russian tea in them, so I must have misheard.

Oh, my opinion? I was thinking looking in the mirror would reverse your personality. Give us a Haruhi who acted like Nagato or a Nagato who acted like Haruhi— Actually, just the thought makes me dizzy. Further brain stimulation would be too perilous. Let’s not.

“How about this?” Koizumi said.

The Bridge’s Backward Mirror:

In the dead of the night when the moon is waxing, if your entire body is reflected in the bridge’s mirror, then the composition of the amino acids in your body is reversed. Also, if you perform routine two of the radio calisthenics, the reflection will go out of sync on the very last move. Perhaps the reflection will step out of the mirror, but probably not. Even if it did, it would vanish soon, so sayeth the rumors.

As he scribbled this down, I asked, “How many is that?”

“Four. We need three more.”

I was getting tired.

“Shall we call it, then? There’s only so long we can keep Suzumiya waiting.”

I was curious how he was keeping Haruhi at bay, but let’s leave that to the professional Haruhi minders. I was perfectly happy remaining an amateur in that regard.

Tea break time. Asahina made everyone fresh cups, and we relaxed for a moment. Then it was time to tackle the remaining three.

Koizumi put his mug down and picked up le report à la mystery club.

“What about an unopenable door that never opens? There’s a door out there somewhere that never opens.”

Didn’t sound like the location mattered.

“Yes. At the moment, no such door exists, so it’s just ‘somewhere.’”

Why won’t it open? Is someone keeping watch? Is it nailed shut?

“We want to keep this unobtrusive. How about a toilet stall that’s always locked? Toilet horror stories are an orthodox school wonder.”

An unopenable toilet stall. But, like, those doors have gaps around them, so you could always just…climb over.

“Nothing happens to anyone who enters that way, but though the door is always heavily locked, there are moments when the locks are gone—and some poor unsuspecting soul went in. And was never seen again. That’s why opening the door became taboo.”

Where’d the hapless victim go?

“Given Suzumiya’s typical thought process, it’s safe to assume a fantasy world.”

And the first person the traveler meets in that new world would be super important. They’d get mixed up in a load of trouble that would decide the very fate of the realm, a journey filled with meeting new people, suffering tragic losses, and falling in love—a heroic saga the bards would sing about for eons.

“If a story on that scale commences, it would well and truly be out of our hands, so let’s pick a more sustainable exit.”

So the door’s basically a warp zone? Maybe it connects to another toilet? What about the men’s room in the North Gate Station?

“That would be a dramatic and unmistakable case of teleportation. Let’s keep it closer, like…the next stall over. That way we could at least argue the occupant forgot which stall they went in.”

Like the Bison Warp? In that case, why not just have them reappear in the same spot? Like, one or two seconds later, long enough for them to have clearly “vanished,” but to an onlooker, it all happens in the blink of an eye. Totally wondrous from a physics standpoint.

“That could work, but it is a little dull.”

Don’t be picky. But you’re right; I dunno if it would satisfy Haruhi.

I put my clenched fist to my brow, meditating on it. Then inspiration struck.

“I’ve got it. We can have them make that trip to a parallel world.”

“Meaning?” Koizumi frowned.

Meaning you open the unopenable door, get transported to a fantasy world, and have an adventure with whoever summoned you.

“What sort of adventure?”

That’s up to the individual. But whether they suffer like crazy or are crazy overpowered, the upshot is they resolve the problem and then get sent back to the toilet from whence they came.

“How?”

Some wondrous power at work. It’s a fantasy world, right? Should be able to find a god or two over there. Ask them.

“Or perhaps a vague mention about the will of the world. The natural order of our world will not stand for having one resident missing for long, and some cosmic scale tips to restore them to their original location.”

Whatever works. But when they return to our world, they lose all memories of their adventure. No matter how much time they spent over there, only an hour passes in our world.

“Let’s at least limit the time they spent adventuring to a few months. If they spend years on the other side, they’d perceptibly age, and it would be awkward getting used to their original body again.”

I’ll leave those details in your capable hands.

“What about clothes? If they change over there, they might find themselves wearing the most outlandish garb and be rather perplexed.”

Let them.

Asahina let out a little sigh.

“They’ll forget everyone they met in that other world…no matter what good times they had or what precious memories they made. If those people only knew, they’d be very sad.”

I hadn’t expected her to take the scenario this hard.

“Don’t worry, Asahina,” I hastily added. “If there’s a demand for a sequel, they’ll be sucked back into that other world, be reunited with their companions, and regain their memories.”

“Really? Oh, good.”

She smiled like a poppy anemone transforming into an iris.

“Let’s hope it sticks to a single sequel,” Koizumi said as he flashed a wry smile. “But I suspect trilogies would be more likely.”

He started writing.

The Unopenable Toilet Door:

A bathroom somewhere on the school grounds has a stall that is always locked and must never be opened. In the dead of the night when the moon was waning gibbous, one unlucky soul opened this door…and was transported to another world. They spent two months away, and when they returned, they found only an hour had passed in our world. And all recollection of the other side faded from memory. Details TBD. Sequels possible.

“…………”

Nagato was silently reading away. The children’s book open on her knees was now the fourth volume.

Koizumi stopped rifling through the stack.

“This one has potential. The anatomical model that moves around at night.”

Why were people so obsessed with making statues and models move?

“An anatomical model roaming the halls… Too typical?”

I might’ve just been getting desensitized, but it did seem a little boring.

The thing should at least do five hundred laps of the four-hundred-meter track or shooting practice on the handball court.

…Crap, now I feel like no matter what we make the model do, it won’t be interesting.

Feeling like my train of thought was quickly going off the rails, I tried to come up with something better. Koizumi was pulling several sheets off the stack of printouts.

“Did you know our school has an anatomical model?” he asked.

Yeah, it’s creepy as is. I’d spotted it before in the biology room a few times en route to another class. A silicone mass, muscles, organs, and blood vessels exposed, no eyelids so the eyeballs just stared back at you—not even its mother could call it handsome. It had a weird psychological effect where it conjured up so many splatterific images that you wound up laughing as a defense mechanism.

“But it would appear the model isn’t always there.”

It’s stuck in the back of the room, so it was true I didn’t see it all that often, but presumably that’s not what you mean?

“The mystery research club’s data included a report of a curious case.”

A what now?

“It seems there is a bona fide mystery surrounding North High’s very own biology-room anatomical model. They call it—the Terrifying Moving Anatomical Model. Not very imaginative.”

Wait, hold up. This whole time, I thought we didn’t have seven wonders, but now you’re telling me we actually have one?

“It seems the mystery club viewed this purely as an everyday, real-world mystery, with nothing occult about it—just an ordinary trick.”

So what’s the case involve?

“According to le report à la mystery club…”

Don’t steal my joke.

Koizumi ignored this. “One morning, a female student from the Sweets Appreciation Society opened the door to the home ec room, and—”

Wait, wait, wait. This is the first I’ve heard of this society, but more importantly, why was she in the home ec room first thing in the morning?

“Typically, the Sweets Appreciation Society operates in the home ec room after school hours, but the sweets they were making required prep work to be done earlier in the day. I believe they were making bavarian cream. The society itself appears to be a splinter group that was originally a part of the home ec club.”

I don’t care.

“In any case, she was rushing to put the ingredients in the home-ec-room fridge. And when she flung open the classroom door…”

Koizumi paused for effect.

“…her eyes met those of the anatomical model, posed right inside the door as if lying in wait. She almost bumped noses with it. So shocked she forgot to scream, the bavarian cream ingredients were splattered across the floor, gone to waste. That was the greatest tragedy of all, she said.”

So the idea was that the model had snuck out of the biology room into the home ec room and then laid an ambush? That did sound like a horror story.

“But the story continues. The victim went directly to the faculty office, explained the situation to a teacher who’d also arrived early, and the two of them went back to the home ec room together. But once they reached the room, there was no sign of the anatomical model that had given the girl such a fright.”

And then?

“And then they went to the biology room. That was where the model was meant to be, after all. And when they arrived, what did they find?”

Quit beating around the bush.

“The anatomical model standing forlornly in the corner, exactly where it always was. Nothing unusual about it at all.”

Had it raced back? Or teleported? Why had it gone to the home ec room in the first place? A total mystery.

“Indeed. But on that note, look here.” Koizumi ruffled through some loose pages. “There was a fish cut in three on one of the counters. It was later identified as mackerel.”

Has the model been making fried mackerel for breakfast only to be interrupted by an unwitting early riser? Not a great punch line.

“Hardly. And this model has been spotted in other unexpected locations as well.”

There’s a whole series of anatomical-model terror incidents?!

“Two weeks after this incident, a member of the girls’ basketball team came to the gym early for morning practice. It just so happened she arrived first. Figuring she might as well get ready, she opened the storeroom—”

And the anatomical model was waiting inside?

“Precisely. The basketball player first on the scene left the slightly old-timey statement, ‘I went weak in the knees!’ However, there was one key difference from the home-ec-room incident.”

Koizumi held the second page aloft.

“This time, the model did not vanish. The rest of the basketball team arrived shortly after, perhaps cutting off its escape. The team members went to the biology room with a teacher who happened to have arrived early, and naturally, the model was not there. The team unanimously agreed to move their sinister intruder back to the biology room, and all cursed the name of whoever was responsible for this prank.”

A prank… Well, that would be the first assumption. Was this the end of it?

“The third incident comes with a photo,” Koizumi said, in the exact same tone of voice. “This time, it took place after school, as the sun was setting. According to a member of the school newspaper staff, work on the latest issue had run late, and they were only just ready to leave. As they were walking down the school corridor, they spotted someone moving about in a classroom in the opposite building. Since the lights in the room were off, they grew suspicious and looked closer—and noticed the figure was not in uniform. Or clothed at all. They squinted—”

And it was the anatomical model.

“The reporter hesitated but ultimately lacked the courage to investigate in person. However, he did have the presence of mind to pull out his phone and take a picture. Then he took that directly to the faculty room, found a teacher still there, and raced directly back to the biology room with them in tow.”

Was it there or not?

“It was. The model was right where it should have been, in the back of the room, and the reporter had no choice but to doubt his own eyes. It had been mere minutes since the first sighting and their arrival at the biology room, which would mean someone—he did not know who—had moved the model from the classroom to the biology room, unseen, and successfully fled the scene.”

Koizumi slid the reporter’s photo across the desk.

The subject was far away, shot on a low-res camera and blurred by shaky hands, then printed out with a cheap color printer. There was no way I would’ve guessed it was an anatomical model without being told in advance. It seemed unlikely this could be used as hard evidence.

Before I could ask, Koizumi added, “The data has no record of a fourth incident.”

So what conclusions had the mystery club drawn from all this?

Koizumi flipped the pages back over, skimming through them. “Nothing written here. I get the impression they drew up the facts but have yet to reach a solution.”

Huh. Well, that’s strange.

“Which one?”

Quite a few things are bugging me, actually. Not just the content of the story, but the fact that the mystery club passed this enigma our way. Judging by your response just now, I’m guessing you agree.

“Yes, well…there’s a number of key points here.”

Not to jump on your phrasing, but yes, the key is really jumping out at me here. The biology room, home ec room, and gym storeroom would all be locked, normally. If students needed access in the morning, whoever was the first to arrive would have to go get the key, and whoever was the last to leave in the evening would lock up before they left. None of these three stories mention whether the doors were locked, and I’m guessing you didn’t just gloss over that, right?

“Certainly not.”

Then we can assume the mystery club intentionally left it out.

One thing we can say for sure is that whoever was moving the model around was also in a position to open all three rooms whenever they pleased.

“Which narrows down the potential suspects considerably.”

And all three incidents mention a teacher who “just happened” to be in the faculty room. Were these different people?

“No names are mentioned, so this is unclear. The way it’s phrased, you could interpret it that way—or the opposite. But if this teacher is working with the culprit, the mystery is easily resolved. That would be much simpler than having a spare key made.”

The other obvious revelation is that there are two anatomical models.

“What makes you say that?”

“Otherwise, we’d have to admit we live in a world where teleportation is possible.”

In the first and third cases, the models seen by the early Sweets Appreciation Society girl to reach the home ec room and the lingering school-paper reporter were not the same as the model in the biology room. No matter how fast they dashed over there, they would find it waiting for them. Meanwhile, the culprit could calmly hide the second model once the witness ran off.

“Hide it where? They’re hardly small enough to be easily hidden.”

I’m not sure if this is true for the one in the biology room, but you can usually take apart those models. Disassemble it, stuff the pieces in an oversize duffel bag, maybe several. Easier if there’s more than one culprit.

“That would make sense. Would that make the second case with the basketball team an attempt at camouflage? Did the culprits actually move the model from the biology room, using that as misdirection to disguise the fact that there were actually two models?”

Might be another reason, though.

“Namely?”

The home ec incident is the only anatomical terrorism incident with a perceivable motive. Since you mentioned the Sweets Appreciation Society had declared independence from the home ec club—any time two groups are using the same room, there’s the potential for conflict, and the split itself might be the cause of it.

Either way, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if the home ec club members had gotten fed up and decided to put the fear of biology into the Sweets Appreciation Society.

“And if they were all in the home ec room together, they could easily overhear when someone would be arriving early. But what significance does the fish have?”

That just served as a hint that the home ec club was likely responsible—so perhaps it was intended as an overt warning. That, or it was just done for meaningless shock value.

“Where’d they find an exact duplicate model?”

Probably got a used one in some online auction, or maybe they thought of this plan because they found one lying around in the first place.

“So the first case is the real one, the second a ruse to hide the method, and the third…”

Was done to play up the anatomical model’s spooky vibe. Someone prone to believing in ghosts or ghoulies would definitely be at the front of the line for fear of moving mannequins. Perhaps the Sweets Appreciation Society girl in the first case was one of them. And the last witness being a reporter, planned or not, scored the story a lot of credibility—no better way to ensure the whole thing ends up in print.

“Ha-ha, so it started as somebody’s prank, then the second and third incidents only served to enhance the supernatural aspects, and as the uproar grew bigger, the more scared everyone became. Well thought-out.”

“By the mystery club, that is.”

Koizumi’s faint smile showed no doubt.

“I know you’ve picked up on it.”

“Have I?”

Please. There’s no dated article on the terrifying anatomical model case. No clue when this took place—but it certainly wasn’t after we enrolled. No way something like this would happen without reaching Haruhi’s ears. But we can safely assume this wasn’t in the past, either. Why? Because that’s exactly the sort of school horror story—or wonder—that Haruhi is looking for. Even if they classified it as a mystery that only appears like horror on the surface, if they had something like this in their files, they’d have told her about it at lunch when she asked.

“This is a fictional tale created by the mystery research club,” I concluded. “Probably the work of the president or the club seniors. Haruhi’s messenger bird brought the question to them at lunch, and they wrote this up in the meantime, then sent it along to us via the same bird. Effectively a pop quiz directed right at her.”

And you’re the one who said it was a trick, not anything occult, Koizumi.

“They snuck an occultish school mystery of their own creation into the pile of seven-wonders data. How droll. When did you first realize it was fiction?”

The moment they failed to mention the key. If they clearly stated the rooms involved were locked, then any idiot would suspect the teacher. Once you realize that, the rest is easy to figure out.

Of course, my solution might be off base, and maybe the person who recorded the details had been too lazy to take note of everyone fussing with keys. It would have broken up the flow of the story.

“That said, I’m impressed they concocted this so quickly. Even providing a photograph.”

They even invented the Sweets Appreciation Society. I doubt any such group actually exists. As for the picture, let’s just make impressed noises about modern photo-doctoring techniques.

“That leaves us with one problem.”

Koizumi placed a finger on his brow.

“If this is a challenge from the mystery club to Suzumiya, you’ve just ruined it. What do you say to that?”

Oh, that hadn’t occurred to me. Still…

“My answer might not be the final truth. There could be several other twists hidden, and I got fooled by one of them. Let’s hope Haruhi’s wits get us through the final round.”

“If Suzumiya asks, then you should go over your deductions once again.”

The Terrifying Moving Anatomical Model:

For details, reference the report drawn up by the mystery research club.

Koizumi’s notes were definitely getting lazier. I got sick of looking at his smirk and turned toward better-looking pastures.

I thought she’d been awfully quiet.

“…Zzz…”

Asahina had her elbows on the table and was resting her chin on her hands, sound asleep.

“………”

Nagato was now on the sixth volume of juvenile horror stories.

Perhaps this was simply proof they were both bored.

“Now we have only one of the seven wonders left.”

Why look so disappointed?

Koizumi flipped through the pages. “Popular school-horror tropes we’ve yet to touch upon include dancing old books, the bust of Bach in the music room changing expressions, the Mona Lisa in the art room yawning, basketballs bouncing in an empty gym, something grabbing your leg when you swim in the pool at night, a school version of a zashiki-warashi, etc.”

Old books that moved were too similar to the anatomical model. The art things were just optical illusions designed to look weird from different angles. The invisible/chameleon man wasn’t doing anything but dribbling and therefore too dull even with the supernatural twist. If there really was something lurking in a freshwater pool, then it was probably a kappa, and we could just bribe that classic folktale creature with some cucumbers. And that last bit about a homebound guardian spirit already described a member of our brigade.

“How about this?” he said, grimly examining the last page of the report. “Nobody knows what the seventh wonder is. If anyone finds out, they vanish.”

Sure you just can’t be bothered to think of a seventh? I mean, dreaming up six was pretty hard work, so it’s not like the rest of us are bursting with ideas.

“If nobody knows it, wouldn’t that make her want to know it all the more?”

We were obviously referring to Haruhi.

“That’s hardly an issue,” Koizumi said. “In the scale of phenomena Suzumiya has generated, wishing to know what must exist is far preferable to creating what does not.”

Are those two concepts that different?

“Consider it this way. Which impacts the world at large more? Making something never seen before? Or locating something that has been lost?”

Only gods and con men could do the first. Although, the possibility of a summer archaeological dig was sounding more and more plausible.

“And I’m worried that not leaving her at least one mystery to create herself will lead to trouble.”

Yeah, making sure she stayed content could be tricky. I was starting to get the hang of it, but I wasn’t particularly pleased about that. Spending over a year under the human personification of arrogance meant I was getting awfully good at predicting how the boss would react.

Koizumi and I went into a huddle, and the seventh wonder ended up like this.

Nobody knows the seventh wonder, and nobody should. That is the wonder of the seventh wonder.

“A bit too succinct, perhaps?”

Good enough for Haruhi. The fact that nobody knew was the whole premise of this wonder, and the condition that kept it fantastical. The moment it became known, it would cease to be a wonder, destroying the seven wonders themselves. You could only have seven wonders if there were seven, after all, so one of them had to be something nobody knew.

“Russell’s paradox? Most apt. That should help convince Suzumiya.”

Apt my ass. That said, if you’re convinced, I’m good. Give this Russell dude my regards.

“We just have to type up a clean version of this and print it out, and we’ll be ready.”

Koizumi had managed to fill two pages with handwritten notes, and he spread them out on the table, then massaged the back of his neck.

“…………”

Nagato seemed to have finished her reading. She picked up the notes, moved over to the laptop the computer club had paid her off with, and started typing at eye-watering speed.

I doubt it took more than a minute.

A few seconds after Nagato tapped the “enter” key with a certain finality, the inkjet printer in the corner hummed to life and started working.

She may have seemed like she was just reading, but I guess she’d been paying attention after all. Whew. Then again, that level of multitasking was well within her specs.

This was a far cry from Asahina, who was totally dozing, but any situation that required Asahina’s help was dire indeed, so let’s call that a good sign. Asahina in a maid outfit devoting herself to menial tasks around the clubroom was my barometer for world peace.

The printer finished up its job and went into cooldown mode. Koizumi thanked Nagato as I got up to retrieve the results.

End of May, SOS Brigade’s Selected Seven Wonders of North High

The wonders are as follows.

1. Legend of Ninomiya Kinjiro’s Statue

2. Mystery of the Music Room

3. Secret of the Staircase

4. Uncanny Mirror on the Bridge…

I’ll omit the rest, but the sheet had the full details of the seven wonders created by the SOS Brigade (sans Haruhi) by dint of Koizumi and myself rambling on endlessly and Nagato and Asahina chiming in with specific and timely advice. The document read like a proper report, and the recipient was a given.

Koizumi had been closely monitoring his phone’s screen, but that seemed to have reached a decisive end because he slipped it back in his pocket, caught my eye, and winked.

A moment later, I heard footsteps approaching at Mach speed right before the door slammed open.

“Listen up, people! I got good news!”

Our chief, Haruhi Suzumiya, beamed a smile at us that would shame the sun god at high noon.

Just the sight of this expression felt like it raised the temperature in the clubroom by 0.5°C.

The noise of the door and Haruhi’s mouth were loud enough that Asahina was yanked back from the world of dreams. She jumped, let out a weird yelp of “Hnauu!” and hastily scrambled to her feet.

“O-oh, Suzumiya!” she said. “Good morning!”

“Mornin’, Mikuru,” Haruhi said, clearly in an excellent mood. She strode over to the chief’s desk, then spun back to face us, waving her index finger like a conductor’s baton. “I realized something this morning!”

When nobody else spoke up, I reluctantly asked, “And that was?”

“We’ve been busy searching for the seven wonders of this world, but despite showing up here every day, we’ve never once thought to ask about the seven wonders passed down in the halls of this very school!”

Are there any? Passed down, I mean.

“I looked into it, but apparently not! But if you think about it for a moment, this is only natural. This is a public school and hardly boasts much of a history. But that’s the good news!”

She was now pacing back and forth.

“All we have to do is make our own seven wonders! For the benefit of all students to come! Having wonders will enrich every student’s school life!”

What the enriching properties of spooky stories were supposed to be was anyone’s guess, but I suppose they did at least add flavor to your day.

Before Haruhi could say another word, I stopped her.

“First, there’s something you should see.”

“What?”

Haruhi looked around, sensing something different in the air.

Nagato was frozen at the laptop, her finger still on the “enter” key. Asahina was holding the tray like a shield in front of her, looking nervous. Koizumi had messed up his expression selection big-time, and the result was indescribably odd.

I slowly reached out and picked up the printed report we’d left lying on the table.

“We figured you’d suggest something like that,” I explained.

Then I handed her the proposal the rest of us had drawn up.

“What’s this?”

Haruhi glanced over it, and her expression changed instantly. She was never hard to read. She looked like she was imagining what bugs would taste like if you deep-fried them.

“Aha. The mystery club, huh?”

She’d already figured out the cause. There was no doubt that Haruhi was quick on the uptake.

She glanced at Notable Tales, Old and New and the files of loose papers piled on the table, and she narrowed her eyes like a sleepy spectacled caiman.

“Guess I shouldn’t have asked her,” she muttered.

No use regretting the choice, whatever the outcome—that girl had turned out to be far more productive than anyone could have imagined. You’d have to be Sherlock Holmes to realize an off-the-cuff question would lead to them turning over a mountain of data and a mystery of their own devising that very afternoon.

“I may have underestimated the mystery research club,” Haruhi admitted.

Then she gave each of us a glare that suggested mercy was not in the cards.

“But you all worked awfully fast, too. I suppose I should be proud! It’s a chief’s duty to praise the growth of her brigade.”

She didn’t look all that pleased, though.

“Well, you sure took your time getting here. What have you been up to?”

“I thought the principal might know some old stories,” Haruhi grumbled. “I went to pick his brain, and somehow, we ended up playing shogi, and my king ended up chasing his around the board all the way to the far edge.”

Ah, Entering King. That would take a while…

I shot Koizumi a sidelong glance, and he had an innocent smile plastered on his face. Cooperators beyond the student council, huh? Guess that included the principal.

“I guess I should have just had tea and a rice cracker before coming right to the clubroom. Dammit.”

Haruhi couldn’t find a proper target to vent her frustration on. You didn’t often see her at such a loss. She curled her lips this way and that, like they were fighting to keep words from spilling out.

What is it? Bottling it up isn’t good for you.

“Argh!” she yelled. If she’d been alone, she probably would’ve stamped her feet. “You all had fun without me!”

She was waving her hands all over now.

“I wanted to be part of this!”

Go on, let it out.

I was thoroughly enjoying this.

“So we going with these seven wonders or what? I mean, your brigade did handcraft them just for you, putting ye olde three heads (plus one) together, pooling all the inspiration, imagination, and innovation we could muster.”

“Okay, fine,” Haruhi said, sighing through pursed lips. She had come to terms with the situation, but only just.

Come to think of it, I think this was the first time we’d so thoroughly gotten the jump on her.

Normally, Haruhi just blurted stuff out, and we were all dragged along in her wake, hastily trying to resolve whatever phenomenon she caused, so it wasn’t often we got to preempt that.

Perhaps this would be an effective strategy going forward. Predict what schemes Haruhi might concoct next, then make sure we were ready. The moment she blew the kickoff whistle, we’d be ready to call no side and bring it to an immediate close. I wasn’t sure if it would make a noticeable impact on our workload, but having several strategies ready was the foundation of any war planning. All that being said, we’ll have to proceed with caution, since there’s always a chance that we could get outplayed despite our best intentions and end up exacerbating the chaos.

“I’ve got some gripes, though. What’s this crap about Ninomiya Kinjiro? We don’t have a statue of him here!”

I am shocked to hear such a pragmatic concern from you. Excuse me while I shed a tear.

“Huh? Don’t be stupid.”

Just because she’d approved of the list in principle didn’t mean Haruhi was so amenable that she’d leave the specifics unchallenged. She flicked the printout of our seven wonders with one finger, giving her take on each.

“A ghost playing 4'33", huh? We’ve got a band room, too, with all the wind instruments you could want. Instead of just a piano, let’s add a bunch more instruments and go with the orchestral version. That’ll liven things up. Should be more fun for the ghosts.”

A full wind orchestra playing a silent piece of music. And all performers were ghosts. That certainly sounded a lot less lonely. Apparently, Haruhi had something against ghost stories that were sad.

Haruhi was quickly working her way through the third entry.

“Air conditioners in classrooms? That’s just wishful thinking.”

Can we make it happen?

“I certainly can’t! I guess I can mention it to the principal next time I see him.”

Let’s call that a faint ray of hope.

“I was wondering about this mirror myself,” Haruhi said. She considered Nagato’s proposal. “If we ended up with D-amino acids, wouldn’t that prevent us from absorbing protein? I suppose that would speed diets up. If word about this mirror gets out to the overeaters, it’ll have clients lining up! It oughtta charge a hundred yen each and make a killing. But we wouldn’t want it being too effective, so let’s put a generous time limit on the effect, like, say, forty-eight hours.”

I thought she’d be interested in the trip to a fantasy world, but instead…

“What’s this about sequels? Anyone who doesn’t have the guts to do their best with the first go-around doesn’t get to have a series. And you’re giving these people way too much plot armor. The basic idea is fine, but you can come up with a better story than this.”

“Certainly,” Koizumi said, his smile so strained that I thought he was gonna pull a cheek muscle. You could see both strained rage and strained joy—there should be a better way to explain this. If only strage and stroy were real words.

As for the sixth wonder…

“The mystery club did it!” she declared immediately. “At least, they did on a meta level. But if we consider the story on its own merits, I have to assume the true culprits are the secret society known only as the Friends of the Anatomical Model. These serial acts of anatomical terror would definitely have continued unabated. After all, this secret society is—”

Deciding that was an inherently dangerous key word I could not risk following up on, I point-blank ignored her.

“Oh, whatever,” Haruhi said as she tossed our report on her desk. She crossed her arms and turned back toward us.

No comment about the seventh wonder, then?

I saw a brilliant smile creeping back onto her face and quickly grew concerned. Before I could identify the source of this concern, Haruhi spelled it out for me.

“I’m gonna think up an eighth wonder all on my own!”

“Huh?” I said reflexively. “Can you read? Nobody knows what the seventh wonder is, so if there’s suddenly an eighth one, the setting’ll be inconsistent!”

“The seventh one still exists; it just isn’t yet known. That’s fine, whatever. It’s esoteric.”

Yeah, but…

“Look, Kyon. Nobody knowing something is totally different from it not existing. Nobody knows what the 9,999-quadrillionth digit of pi is yet, probably, but we do know that’s definitely a number between 0 and 9.”

Yeah, but…

“The seven wonders of North High! That list is complete as is. I respect that. The report also shows how much work you guys put in.”

How nice of you say.

“But nothing can stop me from making an eighth wonder.”

But then there won’t be seven wonders.

“The Four Heavenly Kings get a fifth member all the time!”

In what world? You don’t wanna piss them off, do you?

“I’m talking about the originals! There’s basically five of them.”

Haruhi started counting on her fingers.

“Jikoku-ten, Zocho-ten, Komoku-ten, Tamon-ten, Bishamon-ten. See? Five.”

I almost nodded, but…

“One of those is someone’s alter ego. Right?”

“They say Tamon-ten is another name for Bishamon-ten, but that’s just a trick to fool people in the next life. In actual fact, Tamon-ten and Bishamon-ten were twins! Maybe one of them was actually a split personality of the other. Or the two of them were playing the same role. Doesn’t matter! It’s more dramatic that way!”

I dunno what kinda drama this was supposed to be, but we probably shouldn’t say things that might offend Buddha. Or whatever the Four Heavenly Kings were. Besides, why in the world would Taishaku-ten’s entourage need to trick people in the afterlife by disguising how many of them there actually were?

“Don’t let your thoughts get calcified! The future demands flexibility! Don’t fall behind the times now! The new era will have eight wonders in it.”

An age of eight wonders, huh? Yup, still made no sense.

I looked around, hoping someone else would back my opposition, but only Koizumi even met my eyes, and he simply raised his hands, palms turned upward. Clearly a sign of unconditional surrender.

Asahina was hastily moving toward the tea-prep area, like she was fleeing tentacles emerging from Haruhi’s mouth. Nagato had moved on to the next volume of the children’s horror series.

This is not fair, people.

Wrestling with seventh wonder number eight until it became something unobtrusive was gonna fall completely on my shoulders.

If every school in Japan had eight wonders the following day, this would be all Haruhi’s fault.

She flung herself into the chief’s chair.

“Mikuru! Tea.”

“Coming!”

“Make it strong as night.”

“How about a hot double helping of plum kelp tea?” Asahina said, happily scurrying about her task.

Haruhi was flitting from the report typed up by the SOS Brigade’s reigning WPS champ, Nagato, to the data provided by the mystery research team, and back again, pausing only to make vaguely brooding sounds, grin wickedly, or scowl furiously. Best not to interfere.

I returned to my own folding chair, and Koizumi leaned in to whisper something to me. We keeping secrets now?

“I don’t mind saying it louder, but…,” he murmured. “There is one thing I’ve been wondering about beyond the seven wonders.”

He paused for effect.

“Namely, why you object to addressing that girl from the mystery club with a nickname.”

No reason.

“Really?”

What’s your point?

“Suzumiya has had a nickname for you this whole time. In other words, this signifies your disposition.”

I dunno what you mean.

“That girl calls Suzumiya Haru, right? Rather like how you—”

Okay, don’t finish that thought.

“—regularly call Suzumiya by her given name. No titles or honorifics.”

I need a way to shut him up. Right now.

“A given name sans honorifics is undeniably a sign of affection, but not quite on the same level as a nickname. However, you have no nickname for Suzumiya, so you’re reluctant to address any other women by a nickname instead, correct? Perhaps you aren’t consciously aware of that fact, but if you are—then it’s a deliberate choice.”

I had no response to that.

“I have no opinion on whether calling someone by their name alone is any more or less intimate than a nickname, or whether you can read much into their relationship without more information.”

Even if you did, you don’t have to share it.

“Suzumiya has called you by a nickname from the get-go, so I hardly think it would be inappropriate for you to call her Haru. Try to imagine yourself calling her that.”

I did. Huge mistake. Walked right into his web of crafty words. Before I could stop myself, my imagination was already spooling out that scenario, guesstimating Haruhi’s reaction and expression— I felt sick.

Seeing me turn pale, Koizumi let out what can only be described as a snicker and said, “Pace yourself.”

I dunno if that was a warning or a portent or merely a considerate word, but he left me with that, grabbed the pages he’d been taking notes on, and began brainstorming more details for the fifth wonder’s fantasy setting. How many submissions would it take before Haruhi’s standards were met?

I need a favor from you.

Come up with an amusing nickname for Haruhi. If I find one I like, I might consider calling her that. Address it to North High Literature Club, attn the SOS Brigade. I will announce the results at a later date.

With no one to talk to, I looked around and flipped over the top card of the deck from the abandoned bozu mekuri game.

THOUGH, INDEED, I LOVE, / YET THE RUMOR OF MY LOVE / HAD GONE FAR AND WIDE, / WHEN NO MAN, ERE THEN, COULD KNOW / THAT I HAD BEGUN TO LOVE.

I’d been hoping these would work like a tarot deck and give me a sign related to my current state of mind, but this was clearly unrelated. I’d have to try another.

WOULD THAT THIS, OUR WORLD, / MIGHT BE EVER AS IT IS! / WHAT A LOVELY SCENE! / SEE THAT FISHERWOMAN’S BOAT, / ROPE-DRAWN, TOWED ALONG THE BEACH.

I started to reach for a third…then thought better of it.

Drawing fortunes until you got one you liked wasn’t very sensible. And since the cards failed to include a modern translation, I wasn’t even really sure what they were saying.

I’d have to remind Koizumi to restrict the games he brought to ones we could play without needing a whole lesson first. Didn’t matter if they were foreign or domestic—and that thought reminded me of something.

Right. I’d better pass that on. The mystery club had asked Nagato for a submission. Nagato was in the literature club, so technically that might not concern us, but it had been Haruhi who’d headed up our magazine project.

“Yo, Haruhi.”

“What, Kyon?”

She raised an eyebrow over the brim of her double serving of plum kelp tea.

No clue when she’d moved, but Nagato was back on her chair in the corner, wrapped in silence, reading once more. Having apparently polished off the entire series of children’s horror stories, she’d taken up her massive dictionary again.

Asahina was boiling more water, hemming and hawing over what tea to brew next. She had a tea canister in each hand.

Koizumi was prodding his brow with the butt of his mechanical pencil, muttering ideas for the fantasy world under his breath. Not his usual vibe at all, and honestly a bit creepy.

Haruhi was in her usual seat, radiating burning passion like she was trying to remind the air in the room what temperature it should be.

“The mystery club wanted a favor from Nagato.”

“Oh? What sort of favor?”

Spring was slipping by, and crouched beyond this season of new green growth were dazzling sunshine and tropical temperatures. The SOS Brigade truly was as it ever was.